February 25, 2025 • 19 mins
Building a Flexibility Fund: The Key to Financial Independence | Bryan Foltice Behavioral Finance Podcast
Welcome to the Bryan Foltice Behavioral Finance Podcast! In this episode, Dr. Bryan Foltice discusses the importance of the Flexibility Fund as a crucial step in achieving financial independence. He shares personal anecdotes and practical advice on setting up this fund, which serves as a safety net for unexpected expenses and provides financial freedom. Learn how to prioritize savings goals, manage debt, and create a financial buffer that opens doors to future opportunities. Don't miss out on tips to turn your financial life around and build a secure and flexible future.
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
00:25 Introducing the Flexibility Fund
00:58 The Importance of the Murphy's Fund
02:00 Steps to Eliminate Debt
02:52 Building the Flexibility Fund
03:54 Personal Journey and Financial Turnaround
05:08 The Daniel Fast and Its Impact
06:52 Achieving Financial Independence
10:18 Setting Up Your Flexibility Fund
13:09 Investing Your Flexibility Fund
15:17 Maintaining Financial Discipline
16:57 Conclusion and Listener Engagement
Bryan Foltice Behavioral Finance Website - www.bryanfoltice.com
Money Strong Program - www.moneystrong.net
Instagram - www.instagram.com/bryanfoltice
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-foltice-2578a116/
Disclaimer: www.bryanfoltice.com/cv
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Welcome to the Brian FoltisBehavioral Finance Podcast,
where we unravel the mysteriesof behavioral finance and unlock
the secrets to making smarter,more informed decisions with
your money.
Now, here's your host, Dr.
Brian Foltis.
Hello everybody, and welcome tothe Brian Foltis Behavioral
Finance Podcast.
(00:25):
It's me, Brian Foltis, and todaywe are going to be talking about
the Flexibility Fund.
And this is going to be a partof the Money Strong program that
we've been rolling out startingwith college students and
college graduates.
And we'll be expanding to alladults.
And this program is thefinancial order that I use as
(00:49):
far as prioritizing savingsgoals.
And financial independencegoals.
I've been using this now for 20years.
And so this flexibility fund isa second step after increasing
your savings and having thatMurphy's fund goal of a thousand
(01:10):
dollars.
So we've talked about that inthe last episode where setting
aside 1, 000, figuring out a wayto do that, whether it's a
combination of reducing expensesor increasing income, we're just
going to figure out a way tocome up with that 1, 000 and
that is going to set youyourself apart from.
(01:31):
majority of American householdswho don't have a thousand
dollars to come up with anunexpected expense.
So when your car breaks down oryou need new tires or brakes or
you go to the emergency room ona Thanksgiving day with a sick
(01:51):
wife like we did and youactually have Money to pay for
that without running to creditcard debt or running to a loan
shark.
So The next step though, once weget that 1, 000 set is to Decide
a if you have debt.
Let's see how we're going to Getthat out of your life and We've
(02:15):
talked about We're gonna betalking here later about the
different types of intensitylevels of getting out of debt
Now if you have followed, DaveRamsey and some of the other get
out of debt The intensity leveltends to be very high.
And what I've noticed is,because it maybe works for one
(02:38):
group or one category ofindividuals, doesn't mean it's
going to work for everybody.
So we take a step back, we learnabout the different intensity
levels of getting out of debt,and then try to pick your path.
But, once we get out of thatdebt, the next step is to Build
(02:58):
up this flexibility fund now.
This is gonna look very muchlike What you might have heard
before called an emergency fundand It essentially is the same
thing.
We call it the flexibility fundbecause I Perceive this fund as
(03:19):
not like a doom and gloomdoomsday device is opening the
door for flexibility to makedecisions in our lives.
So just fucking call it what itis.
It's a flexibility fund and I'llshow you, I want to explain like
how I've used this fund toprovide flexibility to get
(03:42):
myself where I am today.
And so again, why we need thisand this flexibility fund won't
when.
I was in my 20s.
This was Now in Florida, where Iwas living in Jacksonville,
(04:02):
Florida, and had my student loandebt, took on car loan, took on
the credit card debt, and Rolledall that up and was that about
28, 000 and had made thatdecision that my twenties were
going in the wrong direction.
And this is not what I wanted todo with my life.
And going backwards financially,physically, I was getting out of
(04:27):
shape.
Like it was just very quicklygoing the wrong way.
And I finally recognized and hadthat moment to myself of.
All right, let's figure out away to turn this around and so
we did This was through ourchurch and you'll be able to
detect my intensity level Basedoff of this but through our
(04:51):
church in January, we would do a21 days of prayer and fasting
This was for me Kind of thatmoment of all right, and we're
gonna change our lives.
We're gonna turn things aroundit's not just financial.
It's physical.
We're doing all of this and whatI decided to do on that 21 days
(05:13):
in January was a Daniel fast Sothis is from the book of Daniel
in the Bible where Daniel fastedfor 21 days and he ate nothing
but raw fruits and vegetablesand water for that time.
And so I did this Daniel fastand so it the modern day version
(05:33):
of that was fruits andvegetables some beans which also
put coffee in play and then whatelse was that?
I think it was.
And we had some tofu in therefor protein, that ended up being
the main thing.
And then juices, so a lot ofjuices, and we were trying to do
that.
And do that for 21 days, and itwas really interesting because
(05:56):
as shitty as the first two tothree days were, where you're
grumpy and Hungry what ends uphappening is you start to have a
lot of clarity.
Maybe you're just delusional.
I don't know, but you have a lotof mental clarity.
Your body starts to shape up.
And so when you're in your upper20s or high 20s in age, 21 day
(06:21):
fast means I lost 25 pounds, Ithink in that 21 days.
So it just went off and lost itlike that.
But that was also the time whenI was really trying to consider
what I wanted to.
We're starting to shift backtowards, do I need to get back
into shape to play basketballagain and try to go back to
(06:41):
Germany?
And what are we going to doaround that?
And how can we do that?
When we have the that here, howcan we just leave when we're
owing people money for all thesecredit cards?
And that's when it was the,you're going to work for the
next year to get out of debt.
And.
And then you're going to buildthat flexibility fund, which is
(07:02):
about three months worth ofexpenses.
And that's what I ended up doingfor that entire year.
I ended up staying in shape orgetting in shape for basketball.
I worked like crazy to get outof debt.
That meant working my full timejob at Fidelity from about seven
to four, 7am to 4pm.
(07:24):
And then after that, Go home fordinner, and then in the evening
it was, I had some buildingsthat I was still cleaning from
my commercial cleaning companythat were still quite
profitable, and I would cleanthose in the nights and
weekends, and that was a quickway of getting out of debt.
And then building that preciousflexibility fund, which I had
(07:47):
set at about it was 12, 000 andI don't recall my expenses for
the month.
It was probably around threemonths worth of expenses.
And that was when That 12, 000,I'm just having that set aside
was just so precious to me andthat helped aid us in selling
(08:12):
all of our possessions andmoving with the dog and a 13
month old overseas to pursue.
The PhD in Germany.
So once again, that's when Icall it a flexibility fund for a
reason because it finally gaveus the ability to be flexible
where we didn't owe anybody anymoney anymore.
(08:33):
And now we had just a little bitof a cushion for a rainy day to,
to have that flexibility to gothen and pursue what we felt
like we were called to do.
Yeah.
That's where I like to thinkabout it.
And I'm not just saying it aslike this positive talk kind of
thing.
It's no, you use it forflexibility.
(08:53):
You need to move yourself out ofa less than ideal situation.
Now you have a cushion to dothat.
And again, when you follow theprogram and you're making your
way out.
out of debt, or you are out ofdebt, you're starting to get
that first glimpse of trueflexibility.
And that is the on ramp to thisfinancial independence.
(09:15):
So, I also realize thatunexpected medical bills,
hospital stays happen.
There can be some negativeEvents that happen that costs
and you can lose your job andhave cuts like that and home
repairs take They happen.
So I'm not just saying oh, it'snothing but great stuff That
(09:37):
flexibility fund gives you theopportunity to pay for some of
life events that negativelyHappen and they're always gonna
happen.
So and sometimes it the 1, 000Murphy fund doesn't take care of
all of that all the time So youcan have it for a number of
different reasons and this alsohaving this flexibility fund,
(10:01):
just like the thousand dollarsfor any big events, keeps you
away from loan sharks, keeps youaway from credit cards, and just
keeps you out of that financialtrouble.
It gives you just that littlebit of buffer zone and.
Okay.
So how much should you save herefor this flexibility fund?
(10:22):
You already have that thousanddollars set aside in your
Murphy's fund.
So this is a nice starter.
The next goal you want to thinkabout it's about three months
worth of expenses and that wouldbe one set and you can go,
hopefully you have a financialplan written out for your
monthly expenses.
Just take a look at how muchyour monthly expenses are.
(10:42):
And try to get three monthsworth of that.
If you are looking at yourfinancial plan using the Money
Strong program, you're going tonotice you have your monthly
bills set in one column.
You'll have their final numberof all those bills.
And then you have the firstthree entries.
And these first three entriesare gas and car maintenance.
(11:04):
This is, and then it's groceriesand food.
Those are like your four walls.
If you have your bills paid, andgas, and your car running, and
food on the table, those are theessentials that I would
consider.
Some of the entertainment andtravel, those things can get
cut.
So even if you're looking atthis as the first step, try to
(11:24):
find those numbers.
How much are your monthly bills?
How much are those first threeentries in your financial plan?
And see if you can come up withthree months worth of that.
After that, this is going to bedependent on what you want to do
and your job stability.
Depends, do you need to extendthis out 6 to 12 months?
(11:48):
If you are a seasonal worker oryou notice that your hours
fluctuate quite a bit based on alot of factors that you can't
control, these are cues toextend your goal to 6.
months of expenses.
We're going to, the moreuncertain or the more volatility
(12:11):
risk that your paycheck has, thelonger you want to extend your
monthly expenses as your buffer.
If you have a pretty stable.
financial financially stablepaycheck that doesn't fluctuate
very much, then you can starterring on the three months of
expenses because essentiallyonce you're done with this
(12:33):
flexibility fund goal, then youwant to move on to investing and
other financial savings goals.
But once again, this kind ofcomes down to your own
particular situation.
I know with mine, it's prettypredictable.
Now being a tenured professorhere there's one thing that can
be said about it.
There is some pretty good jobsecurity around that.
(12:54):
And so we tend to err on thethree, three to four months
worth of overall expenses.
And we just have that set asideand now moves into our separate,
our next conversation of whereto invest it.
If you've done that thousanddollars.
Of Murphy's fund savings.
You already have.
(13:15):
A high yield savings accountopen, or you have a brokerage
account open that allows you tohave your money just sitting in
a money market fund, whichagain, here in February of 2025,
it's going to give you aroundfour to four and a half percent
based on the money market, butyou're not going to lose value.
It's not going to go up and downwith the market each day.
(13:37):
And so we're just going to setthat aside.
It's going to earn a little bitof money on.
And so you'll see that grow asyou have that flexibility fund
set aside.
Don't, I don't tend to do a lotof aggressive investing around
this and With this money, so Ijust want it to stay safe
stable, but as you furtherdevelop your financial plan and
(14:00):
you have A lot of money and nowyou have some passive income
coming from that extra money Youcan start adjusting that and
using those funds to invest butagain, as you're starting out
just having that Nice cushionand keeping it stable in a money
market fund is generally goingto be your best option for you,
(14:21):
so you do that in your separateaccount and as you are Building
this we're following the sameprinciples that you already have
used for your first thousanddollars where you're automating
it You're paying yourself firstSo this happens when you get
your paycheck, that money comesout first.
You're not waiting till the endof the month to whatever else is
(14:42):
left, man.
I did that for a long time and Ican attest, man, it does not
work.
Even the most disciplinedpeople, it will not work.
Pay yourself first.
And then if you have a bad monthor things don't go the way this
happens, you can always take itback.
It takes basically one to twobusiness days to retrieve the
(15:04):
money from your money marketaccount.
So because you are not investedin a stock there's no T plus
three settlement trading days tobe able to retrieve your money
or to be able to access it.
You can basically, if you have aBank account to move it back and
forth from one of these accountsis not going to take more than
(15:24):
one to two days So you have allthese systems in place and now
it's starting to work from youfor you on a higher level we're
following the same principles oftrying to figure out ways to
reduce your costs a little bitand to increase your income and
When you combine that you, youtry to avoid this lifestyle
creep getting those bonuses oryour tax refunds or anything
(15:50):
like that.
We're going to resist the urgeto.
know, go crazy and to just letyour spending keep up with your
income.
So all these fundamental thingshere are crucial to just setting
up a sustainable financiallifestyle.
And, but now you have reallybuilt this foundation that gives
(16:11):
you that flexibility to take thejob that you want, take the
vocation that you feel.
do in the location, huh?
See vocation in the locationthat you want, that if you have
to get up and pay, you can usethat flexibility fund to create
the life that you're lookingfor.
And now you're going to startfeeling.
(16:32):
This control, the sense ofcontrol and the confidence that
comes with it, that is going tomotivate us to then go, all
right, the foundation is set.
This feels really good.
I'm starting to feel power.
What's next?
We've got those steps ready foryou and how we're going to
continue to shape our financiallives once we have this
(16:55):
flexibility fund set.
But for now, I'm going to relentand we're going to stick a pin
in it from here and we'll comeback and we'll talk about some
more topics, but let me knowwhat you think here.
What?
What is your ideal amount ofexpenses?
Is it three months?
Is it longer?
Is it shorter?
Where are we at with this?
(17:16):
I'm totally open to anyconversations Do you?
Keep it somewhere else.
Does it work for you to keep itin the same place?
It doesn't for me, but I wouldlove to hear from you and have
any comments.
I would love to hear from youFind me on Instagram or on
YouTube or on any of thesepodcast platforms if you have
(17:36):
something nice to say I wouldlove to hear it too.
Please make sure you send acomment and every little bit
helps grow this messaging.
We're trying to get thatpercentage of people living
paycheck to paycheck down from60 percent to a lower number.
And it starts with you startswith sending it to your friends.
So thanks very much forlistening today.
Have a wonderful day and we'llsee you on the next episode.
(17:58):
Bye.
Thank you for tuning in toanother episode of the Brian
Foltis Behavioral FinancePodcast.
We hope you found ourexploration into the fascinating
world of human behavior andfinance, both enlightening and
thought provoking.
Be sure to subscribe for futureepisodes and until next time,
stay curious and financiallysavvy.
Welcome to the Brian FoltisBehavioral Finance Podcast,
where we unravel the mysteriesof behavioral finance and unlock
the secrets to making smarter,more informed decisions with
your money.
Now, here's your host, Dr.
Brian Foltis.
Hello everybody, and welcome tothe Brian Foltis Behavioral
Finance Podcast.
(00:25):
It's me, Brian Foltis, and todaywe are going to be talking about
the Flexibility Fund.
And this is going to be a partof the Money Strong program that
we've been rolling out startingwith college students and
college graduates.
And we'll be expanding to alladults.
And this program is thefinancial order that I use as
(00:49):
far as prioritizing savingsgoals.
And financial independencegoals.
I've been using this now for 20years.
And so this flexibility fund isa second step after increasing
your savings and having thatMurphy's fund goal of a thousand
(01:10):
dollars.
So we've talked about that inthe last episode where setting
aside 1, 000, figuring out a wayto do that, whether it's a
combination of reducing expensesor increasing income, we're just
going to figure out a way tocome up with that 1, 000 and
that is going to set youyourself apart from.
(01:31):
majority of American householdswho don't have a thousand
dollars to come up with anunexpected expense.
So when your car breaks down oryou need new tires or brakes or
you go to the emergency room ona Thanksgiving day with a sick
(01:51):
wife like we did and youactually have Money to pay for
that without running to creditcard debt or running to a loan
shark.
So The next step though, once weget that 1, 000 set is to Decide
a if you have debt.
Let's see how we're going to Getthat out of your life and We've
(02:15):
talked about We're gonna betalking here later about the
different types of intensitylevels of getting out of debt
Now if you have followed, DaveRamsey and some of the other get
out of debt The intensity leveltends to be very high.
And what I've noticed is,because it maybe works for one
(02:38):
group or one category ofindividuals, doesn't mean it's
going to work for everybody.
So we take a step back, we learnabout the different intensity
levels of getting out of debt,and then try to pick your path.
But, once we get out of thatdebt, the next step is to Build
(02:58):
up this flexibility fund now.
This is gonna look very muchlike What you might have heard
before called an emergency fundand It essentially is the same
thing.
We call it the flexibility fundbecause I Perceive this fund as
(03:19):
not like a doom and gloomdoomsday device is opening the
door for flexibility to makedecisions in our lives.
So just fucking call it what itis.
It's a flexibility fund and I'llshow you, I want to explain like
how I've used this fund toprovide flexibility to get
(03:42):
myself where I am today.
And so again, why we need thisand this flexibility fund won't
when.
I was in my 20s.
This was Now in Florida, where Iwas living in Jacksonville,
(04:02):
Florida, and had my student loandebt, took on car loan, took on
the credit card debt, and Rolledall that up and was that about
28, 000 and had made thatdecision that my twenties were
going in the wrong direction.
And this is not what I wanted todo with my life.
And going backwards financially,physically, I was getting out of
(04:27):
shape.
Like it was just very quicklygoing the wrong way.
And I finally recognized and hadthat moment to myself of.
All right, let's figure out away to turn this around and so
we did This was through ourchurch and you'll be able to
detect my intensity level Basedoff of this but through our
(04:51):
church in January, we would do a21 days of prayer and fasting
This was for me Kind of thatmoment of all right, and we're
gonna change our lives.
We're gonna turn things aroundit's not just financial.
It's physical.
We're doing all of this and whatI decided to do on that 21 days
(05:13):
in January was a Daniel fast Sothis is from the book of Daniel
in the Bible where Daniel fastedfor 21 days and he ate nothing
but raw fruits and vegetablesand water for that time.
And so I did this Daniel fastand so it the modern day version
(05:33):
of that was fruits andvegetables some beans which also
put coffee in play and then whatelse was that?
I think it was.
And we had some tofu in therefor protein, that ended up being
the main thing.
And then juices, so a lot ofjuices, and we were trying to do
that.
And do that for 21 days, and itwas really interesting because
(05:56):
as shitty as the first two tothree days were, where you're
grumpy and Hungry what ends uphappening is you start to have a
lot of clarity.
Maybe you're just delusional.
I don't know, but you have a lotof mental clarity.
Your body starts to shape up.
And so when you're in your upper20s or high 20s in age, 21 day
(06:21):
fast means I lost 25 pounds, Ithink in that 21 days.
So it just went off and lost itlike that.
But that was also the time whenI was really trying to consider
what I wanted to.
We're starting to shift backtowards, do I need to get back
into shape to play basketballagain and try to go back to
(06:41):
Germany?
And what are we going to doaround that?
And how can we do that?
When we have the that here, howcan we just leave when we're
owing people money for all thesecredit cards?
And that's when it was the,you're going to work for the
next year to get out of debt.
And.
And then you're going to buildthat flexibility fund, which is
(07:02):
about three months worth ofexpenses.
And that's what I ended up doingfor that entire year.
I ended up staying in shape orgetting in shape for basketball.
I worked like crazy to get outof debt.
That meant working my full timejob at Fidelity from about seven
to four, 7am to 4pm.
(07:24):
And then after that, Go home fordinner, and then in the evening
it was, I had some buildingsthat I was still cleaning from
my commercial cleaning companythat were still quite
profitable, and I would cleanthose in the nights and
weekends, and that was a quickway of getting out of debt.
And then building that preciousflexibility fund, which I had
(07:47):
set at about it was 12, 000 andI don't recall my expenses for
the month.
It was probably around threemonths worth of expenses.
And that was when That 12, 000,I'm just having that set aside
was just so precious to me andthat helped aid us in selling
(08:12):
all of our possessions andmoving with the dog and a 13
month old overseas to pursue.
The PhD in Germany.
So once again, that's when Icall it a flexibility fund for a
reason because it finally gaveus the ability to be flexible
where we didn't owe anybody anymoney anymore.
(08:33):
And now we had just a little bitof a cushion for a rainy day to,
to have that flexibility to gothen and pursue what we felt
like we were called to do.
Yeah.
That's where I like to thinkabout it.
And I'm not just saying it aslike this positive talk kind of
thing.
It's no, you use it forflexibility.
(08:53):
You need to move yourself out ofa less than ideal situation.
Now you have a cushion to dothat.
And again, when you follow theprogram and you're making your
way out.
out of debt, or you are out ofdebt, you're starting to get
that first glimpse of trueflexibility.
And that is the on ramp to thisfinancial independence.
(09:15):
So, I also realize thatunexpected medical bills,
hospital stays happen.
There can be some negativeEvents that happen that costs
and you can lose your job andhave cuts like that and home
repairs take They happen.
So I'm not just saying oh, it'snothing but great stuff That
(09:37):
flexibility fund gives you theopportunity to pay for some of
life events that negativelyHappen and they're always gonna
happen.
So and sometimes it the 1, 000Murphy fund doesn't take care of
all of that all the time So youcan have it for a number of
different reasons and this alsohaving this flexibility fund,
(10:01):
just like the thousand dollarsfor any big events, keeps you
away from loan sharks, keeps youaway from credit cards, and just
keeps you out of that financialtrouble.
It gives you just that littlebit of buffer zone and.
Okay.
So how much should you save herefor this flexibility fund?
(10:22):
You already have that thousanddollars set aside in your
Murphy's fund.
So this is a nice starter.
The next goal you want to thinkabout it's about three months
worth of expenses and that wouldbe one set and you can go,
hopefully you have a financialplan written out for your
monthly expenses.
Just take a look at how muchyour monthly expenses are.
(10:42):
And try to get three monthsworth of that.
If you are looking at yourfinancial plan using the Money
Strong program, you're going tonotice you have your monthly
bills set in one column.
You'll have their final numberof all those bills.
And then you have the firstthree entries.
And these first three entriesare gas and car maintenance.
(11:04):
This is, and then it's groceriesand food.
Those are like your four walls.
If you have your bills paid, andgas, and your car running, and
food on the table, those are theessentials that I would
consider.
Some of the entertainment andtravel, those things can get
cut.
So even if you're looking atthis as the first step, try to
(11:24):
find those numbers.
How much are your monthly bills?
How much are those first threeentries in your financial plan?
And see if you can come up withthree months worth of that.
After that, this is going to bedependent on what you want to do
and your job stability.
Depends, do you need to extendthis out 6 to 12 months?
(11:48):
If you are a seasonal worker oryou notice that your hours
fluctuate quite a bit based on alot of factors that you can't
control, these are cues toextend your goal to 6.
months of expenses.
We're going to, the moreuncertain or the more volatility
(12:11):
risk that your paycheck has, thelonger you want to extend your
monthly expenses as your buffer.
If you have a pretty stable.
financial financially stablepaycheck that doesn't fluctuate
very much, then you can starterring on the three months of
expenses because essentiallyonce you're done with this
(12:33):
flexibility fund goal, then youwant to move on to investing and
other financial savings goals.
But once again, this kind ofcomes down to your own
particular situation.
I know with mine, it's prettypredictable.
Now being a tenured professorhere there's one thing that can
be said about it.
There is some pretty good jobsecurity around that.
(12:54):
And so we tend to err on thethree, three to four months
worth of overall expenses.
And we just have that set asideand now moves into our separate,
our next conversation of whereto invest it.
If you've done that thousanddollars.
Of Murphy's fund savings.
You already have.
(13:15):
A high yield savings accountopen, or you have a brokerage
account open that allows you tohave your money just sitting in
a money market fund, whichagain, here in February of 2025,
it's going to give you aroundfour to four and a half percent
based on the money market, butyou're not going to lose value.
It's not going to go up and downwith the market each day.
(13:37):
And so we're just going to setthat aside.
It's going to earn a little bitof money on.
And so you'll see that grow asyou have that flexibility fund
set aside.
Don't, I don't tend to do a lotof aggressive investing around
this and With this money, so Ijust want it to stay safe
stable, but as you furtherdevelop your financial plan and
(14:00):
you have A lot of money and nowyou have some passive income
coming from that extra money Youcan start adjusting that and
using those funds to invest butagain, as you're starting out
just having that Nice cushionand keeping it stable in a money
market fund is generally goingto be your best option for you,
(14:21):
so you do that in your separateaccount and as you are Building
this we're following the sameprinciples that you already have
used for your first thousanddollars where you're automating
it You're paying yourself firstSo this happens when you get
your paycheck, that money comesout first.
You're not waiting till the endof the month to whatever else is
(14:42):
left, man.
I did that for a long time and Ican attest, man, it does not
work.
Even the most disciplinedpeople, it will not work.
Pay yourself first.
And then if you have a bad monthor things don't go the way this
happens, you can always take itback.
It takes basically one to twobusiness days to retrieve the
(15:04):
money from your money marketaccount.
So because you are not investedin a stock there's no T plus
three settlement trading days tobe able to retrieve your money
or to be able to access it.
You can basically, if you have aBank account to move it back and
forth from one of these accountsis not going to take more than
(15:24):
one to two days So you have allthese systems in place and now
it's starting to work from youfor you on a higher level we're
following the same principles oftrying to figure out ways to
reduce your costs a little bitand to increase your income and
When you combine that you, youtry to avoid this lifestyle
creep getting those bonuses oryour tax refunds or anything
(15:50):
like that.
We're going to resist the urgeto.
know, go crazy and to just letyour spending keep up with your
income.
So all these fundamental thingshere are crucial to just setting
up a sustainable financiallifestyle.
And, but now you have reallybuilt this foundation that gives
(16:11):
you that flexibility to take thejob that you want, take the
vocation that you feel.
do in the location, huh?
See vocation in the locationthat you want, that if you have
to get up and pay, you can usethat flexibility fund to create
the life that you're lookingfor.
And now you're going to startfeeling.
(16:32):
This control, the sense ofcontrol and the confidence that
comes with it, that is going tomotivate us to then go, all
right, the foundation is set.
This feels really good.
I'm starting to feel power.
What's next?
We've got those steps ready foryou and how we're going to
continue to shape our financiallives once we have this
(16:55):
flexibility fund set.
But for now, I'm going to relentand we're going to stick a pin
in it from here and we'll comeback and we'll talk about some
more topics, but let me knowwhat you think here.
What?
What is your ideal amount ofexpenses?
Is it three months?
Is it longer?
Is it shorter?
Where are we at with this?
(17:16):
I'm totally open to anyconversations Do you?
Keep it somewhere else.
Does it work for you to keep itin the same place?
It doesn't for me, but I wouldlove to hear from you and have
any comments.
I would love to hear from youFind me on Instagram or on
YouTube or on any of thesepodcast platforms if you have
(17:36):
something nice to say I wouldlove to hear it too.
Please make sure you send acomment and every little bit
helps grow this messaging.
We're trying to get thatpercentage of people living
paycheck to paycheck down from60 percent to a lower number.
And it starts with you startswith sending it to your friends.
So thanks very much forlistening today.
Have a wonderful day and we'llsee you on the next episode.
(17:58):
Bye.
Thank you for tuning in toanother episode of the Brian
Foltis Behavioral FinancePodcast.
We hope you found ourexploration into the fascinating
world of human behavior andfinance, both enlightening and
thought provoking.
Be sure to subscribe for futureepisodes and until next time,
stay curious and financiallysavvy.
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